Experts see decline in alcohol consumption among Gen Zs and millennials

Decades of data shows Gen Z consumes less alcohol than previous generations when they were the same age.

It’s not just Dry January for some Halifax students, with many choosing to opt out of drinking altogether.

Whether it’s wine, spirits or beer, some Gen Zs and millennials are just avoiding it all.

“If you are an athlete, it messes with your recovery, it just makes your morning worse and your night worse,” says Dalhousie University student Peter Lee. “I personally don’t enjoy it anymore. I used to, but after feeling terrible at the end of a night, I just stopped consuming alcohol.”

Maddux Steinley plays for the men’s volleyball team at Dalhousie University. He chose to stop drinking to better his performance on the court.

“I drank a bit last year and decided this year I am going to stop drinking to see how it will affect my play because I am on the volleyball team. I am feeling a lot better and it’s better financially too, I’m not spending as much money,” says Steinley.

This is a trend clinical psychologist Simon Sherry says he has noticed.

“For the last two decades, we have seen a consistent decline in our young adults in terms of their consumption of alcohol and binge drinking,” says Sherry, who is also a psychology and neuroscience professor at Dalhousie University.

It’s a consistent and positive change, according to Sherry, since he says frequent alcohol consumption is detrimental to both mental and physical health.

“Alcohol plays a leading role in a number of mental disorders, especially anxiety and depression,” says Sherry. “Certainly, there is nothing wrong with occasionally having a drink, but if you are a frequent drinker or someone who drinks a lot in a short amount of time, it will be corrosive to your mental and physical health.”

This generation is aware of what alcohol does to them, but social connection is one thing they don’t want to lose, so they are paving a new way in the world of sober living.

“Surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, they are actually leading the category for no and low alcohol, especially no and low-alcohol wines. So, we are seeing a lot of innovation in that category,” says Natalie MacLean, the editor of Nataliemaclean.com, Canada’s largest drink review website.

MacLean says there are a number of reasons why we are seeing a change in this generation’s drinking behaviour. She says spending could be one reason, as well as awareness of negative health impacts.

She adds that social drinking isn’t a bad thing and can actually help build community.

“Those in the Gen X and baby boomer categories often want to cut back or pace themselves, but they love the social aspect of wine and other drinks. So, it’s like getting together with your friends for occasions where you would like to have a glass and you don’t want orange juice or water, but you want to pace yourself,” says MacLean.

Experts like Helen Luedee, the executive director of EHN Bellwood Nova Scotia, an addiction treatment centre, says Gen Z is health-conscious, but not when it comes to all substances.

“They are conscientious on one hand but very selective and they don’t look at the whole impact. So, they say, ‘I use marijuana, for example, to reduce my anxiety.’ But what the studies show is that prolonged use of marijuana actually increases people’s episodes of anxiety,” says Luedee.

“If we look among Gen Z, they are drinking less but they are using cannabis more, and so there are really health concerns that come with that too,” says Sherry.

Despite alcohol consumption being down among young people, that’s not to say this generation does not drink. Luedee says it’s still a problem they see at their treatment centre among this age group.

“Alcohol use disorder is still showing up daily, and while we know that studies are showing that people are not drinking as much, we know that problem drinking is still quite significant,” says Luedee.